Northern California Folk-Rock Festival, Santa Clara County Fairgrounds, San Jose, CA, 5-18-1968, Part 5 - Jefferson Airplane

This is the fifth album out of seven albums I'm posting from the 1968 Northern California Folk-Rock Festival. This set features Jefferson Airplane.

I said quite a lot in my write-up for the first album I posted from this festival, the Youngbloods set. I recommend you read that, because most of that applies to this set too. Most importantly, note that this is sourced from an audience bootleg, so the sound quality isn't up to my usual standards. I had to do a lot of work to fix all sorts of flaws. The final results sounds pretty decent for a 1968 concert, in my opinion, but you need to be tolerant about the flaws that still remain.

Jefferson Airplane was the headlining act of the first day of the festival, and thus were given the most covered final set of the day. As you can see from the cover photo and text, the festival was scheduled to go each day from 11 A.M. to 6 P.M., and it seems the kept that schedule fairly well because it was still light outside at the time of this set. 

It makes sense that Jefferson Airplane was one of the headliners, along with the Doors being the headliners for the second day. Out of all the musical acts performing at the festival, those two had had the biggest commercial success at this point, by far. Jefferson Airplane had two Top Ten hits in the U.S. in 1967 with "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit." And the Doors went all the way to Number One with "Light My Fire" in 1967.

At this point in 1968, the band was already moving towards their fourth album, "Crown of Creation." It wouldn't be released until September. But they played two songs from it in this concert, "Greasy Heart" and "Star Track."

I mentioned previously that some of these recordings were bedeviled by a high buzzing noise. Unfortunately, this set suffers from that probably the most. I especially had a hard time with the song "Today." Since it's a quiet, acoustic song, the buzz is particularly noticeable. I tried my best to reduce that, but I couldn't completely get rid of it.   

This album is 46 minutes long. 

01 White Rabbit (Jefferson Airplane)
02 Plastic Fantastic Lover (Jefferson Airplane)
03 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
04 Watch Her Ride (Jefferson Airplane)
05 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
06 Today (Jefferson Airplane)
07 The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil (Jefferson Airplane)
08 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
09 Greasy Heart (Jefferson Airplane)
10 Fat Angel (Jefferson Airplane)
11 Star Track (Jefferson Airplane)
12 Won't You Try - Saturday Afternoon (Jefferson Airplane)
13 Somebody to Love (Jefferson Airplane)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/qsCMiLYg

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/wEZI5zoxZcpJbE5/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. From right to left: Paul Kantner (he appears small and near the bottom of the image, on guitar), Marty Balin (holding the tambourine), Jorma Kaukonen (on lead guitar), and Grace Slick (holding maracas and wearing a pink top).

The original was in black and white. However, I was able to find some color images of the band at this concert. It's just that they had problems, so I preferred to use this one. But because I saw some color ones, I was able to get the colors correct. For instance, I was able to get the color of Slick's top correct, as well as other colors. 

SNACK Benefit, Kezar Stadium, San Francisco, CA, 3-23-1975, Part 6: Jefferson Starship

The sixth major musical act to perform at the 1975 SNACK benefit in San Francisco was Jefferson Starship.

Jefferson Starship was the 1970s version of the 1960s band Jefferson Airplane. At the time of this concert, the band had just released the single "Miracles" earlier in the month. It would go on to reach Number 3 in the US chart, the band's biggest hit by far. However, the song wasn't performed at this concert. That's probably because the song was written by Marty Balin and co-sung with him and Grace Slick. Balin was only a sometimes member of the band at the time, and he wasn't at this concert.

The album "Miracles" was on, "Red Octopus," wouldn't be released until July. It would go on to be a huge seller, reaching Number One in the US album chart. The band played some songs from it, like "Fast Buck Freddie" and "Play on Love," that would have been brand new to the audience.

There was some drama going on behind the stage prior to this set taking place. The band's bassist Peter Sears got stuck in traffic trying to get to the concert, and the band felt they couldn't go on stage without him. The audience grew restless as everyone waited for Sears to show up. Promoter Bill Graham was getting frantic. He was going to have Joan Baez go on stage instead (and have Jefferson Starship take her time slot later), but at literally the last minute, Sears showed up and ran to the stage, allowing the band to go on after all.

By the way, I don't think I've mentioned this, but for all the sets, the lead vocals were too low. So I used the UVR5 audio editing program to boost the vocals relative to the instruments.

This album is 39 minutes long.

47 Ride the Tiger (Jefferson Starship)
48 talk (Jefferson Starship)
49 Fast Buck Freddie (Jefferson Starship)
50 talk (Jefferson Starship)
51 Get Fiddler (Jefferson Starship)
52 talk (Jefferson Starship)
53 Play on Love (Jefferson Starship)
54 I Want to See Another World (Jefferson Starship)
55 Sweeter than Honey (Jefferson Starship)
56 talk (Jefferson Starship)
57 Somebody to Love (Jefferson Starship)
58 talk (Jefferson Starship)
59 Volunteers (Jefferson Starship)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17209134/VA-SNCKBnefitKzarStdumSnFrncscoCA197506JffrsonStrship_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/D9Td3SpW

Yet again, I could only find one photo of this act performing at this exact concert, so I used it. But it was another black and white one, so I colorized it with the help of the Palette program. The photo only should Paul Kantner on guitar and Grace Slick on vocals. I had to guess on the colors for Kantner (and I stuck with the colors chosen by the Palette program), but I read in a review of the concert that Slick wore all black.

UPDATE: On October 7, 2024, I upgraded the photo with the use of the Krea AI program.

Jefferson Starship - Winterland, San Francisco, CA, 11-24-1974

I'm a big fan of Jefferson Airplane. But Jefferson Starship? Not so much. That band started off pretty good, but followed the musical trends of the times and quickly slid into a slick, corporate style of rock. Things went from bad to worse, bottoming out in the 1980s with Starship and the hit "We Built This City," which has been rated as one of the most dislike rock songs of all time by multiple polls and magazines.

That said, this is a really good bootleg concert from the very beginning of Jefferson Starship. This concert took place only one month after the release of the first Jefferson Starship album, "Dragon Fly." Although it must be said what was a "Jefferson Starship" album was a bit vague, since they were a few albums already released from 1970 to 1974 with more or less usual bunch of musicians, especially Grace Slick and Paul Kantner. One, "Blows Against the Empire," had actually been credited to "Paul Kantner and Jefferson Starship" back in 1970. The reason for all these name changes is that the rights to the name "Jefferson Airplane" was shared by several band members, and that name couldn't continue to be used once Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Cassady left the band in 1973. 

But at the time of this concert, the band was basically the same personnel as on the last Jefferson Airplane tour in 1973. Also, the music was still generally weird, influenced by the psychedelic sensibilities of the late 1960s. For instance, in this concert the band played most of the 1970 "Blows Against the Empire" album, which was kind of a science fiction concept album. So I basically consider this the last gasp of Jefferson Airplane (not counting their 1989 reunion). Just one year later, Jefferson Starship would have a huge hit with the ballad "Miracles" and go in a very different musical direction.

This concert is also somewhat historic in that Marty Balin joined in for the encore. He sang the song "Caroline," which had just appeared on the "Dragon Fly" album (and a song he cowrote with Paul Kantner). I'm not sure, but I think he stayed for the two songs after that as well. He had been one of the founders of Jefferson Airplane, but had left in 1971 due to musical and personal differences with other band members. So this was the first concert he'd played with his former band mates in three years. At this point, he wasn't an official member of the band, but he did join up a short time later. It was Balin's song "Miracles" that would take the band to the top of the charts in 1975. 

This bootleg recording is an excellent sounding soundboard. It used to have some serious flaws, but I believe I fixed them. Despite being a soundboard, the mix was all over the place. There were parts where the vocals were too loud (which is rare, in my experience) or too quiet. It was the same with some of the instruments, such as the bass getting way too loud at times. But thanks to audio editing software like UVR5, I was able to separate out the different instruments and restore some balance. 

The biggest trouble I had were with the first two songs, where the vocals sometimes got so low in the mix that even UVR5 couldn't find anything worth separating. For "Ride the Tiger," this was only a problem for the second half of the song. There was a portion that was a repeat from earlier in the song, so I patched in that section from earlier. There was another portion that was different and so quiet that I've basically kept that just as without vocals. For "Devil's Den," there were severe problems with the vocals for two verses in the first half of the song. I found a different soundboard bootleg from 1975, and patched in just the vocals for those bits from that one.

The bottom line is, although there was a lot of hassle for me, this should all sound great for you. The band toured a lot in 1974, even touring before recording the "Dragon Fly" album, but this seems to sound way better than any other bootleg from that year.

This concert is two hours and ten minutes long.

01 Ride the Tiger [Edit] (Jefferson Starship)
02 talk (Jefferson Starship)
03 Devil's Den [Edit] (Jefferson Starship)
04 talk (Jefferson Starship)
05 Wooden Ships (Jefferson Starship)
06 talk (Jefferson Starship)
07 Come Again, Toucan (Jefferson Starship)
08 talk (Jefferson Starship)
09 Hyper Drive (Jefferson Starship)
10 talk (Jefferson Starship)
11 Papa John's Down Home Blues (Jefferson Starship)
12 Better Lying Down (Jefferson Starship)
13 That's for Sure (Jefferson Starship)
14 talk (Jefferson Starship)
15 All Fly Away (Jefferson Starship)
16 talk (Jefferson Starship)
17 Come to Life (Jefferson Starship)
18 Milk Train (Jefferson Starship)
19 Sunrise (Jefferson Starship)
20 Hijack (Jefferson Starship)
21 Home - Have You Seen the Stars Tonite (Jefferson Starship)
22 XM - Starship (Jefferson Starship)
23 talk (Jefferson Starship)
24 Caroline (Jefferson Starship)
25 Somebody to Love (Jefferson Starship)
26 talk (Jefferson Starship)
27 Volunteers (Jefferson Starship)

https://www.imagenetz.de/ej2XG

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/8ngQ2XCr

second alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/fPfIUiBB9RA2Hcb/file

I'm not sure, but I think the cover photo could be from this exact concert. It's from 1974, and one can see, from right to left: Paul Kantner (in the background), Grace Slick, and Marty Balin. I'm guessing it could be this concert due to the presence of Balin, who didn't appear in any other concert by the band in 1974. (This was the last show they played that year.) So the only way it's from another concert is if the year is wrong, which is possible.

Jefferson Airplane - O'Keefe Center, Toronto, Canada, 8-5-1967

I haven't posted any Jefferson Airplane concerts until now, because those have been pretty well represented with over a dozen official live releases. But this is a particularly good bootleg and it doesn't look like it's gotten around much. So hopefully this will give it more deserved exposure.

In February 1967, Jefferson Airplane released their classic album "Surrealistic Pillow." At the same time, they released "Somebody to Love" as a single. It soon became a big hit, along with "White Rabbit." So by the time this concert took place, the band was breaking out all over. They were booked for over a week at the O'Keefe Center, in a double bill with the Grateful Dead, to help spread the San Francisco psychedelic sound into Toronto, which was probably the most receptive city in Canada. 

This concert consists of two sets, with "Come Back Baby" being the end of the first set. So there are a few repeated songs, but luckily not too many, just "Somebody to Love," "She Has Funny Cars," and "Two Heads." In addition to largely promoting the songs from "Surrealistic Pillow," the band was already playing some songs that would go on their next album, "After Bathing at Baxter's."

This is an excellent sounding soundboard recording. There were a couple of problems though. One was that the last minute or so of "Come Back Baby" was missing. So I found a different soundboard version from March 1967 and patched that in to finish it off. That's why that song has "[Edit]" in its title. Also, the banter between songs was quiet, as is commonly the case, so I drastically boosted the volume of that.

The last song, "Comin' Back to Me," isn't from this concert at all. Consider it a kind of bonus track. This actually was released on the "Jefferson Airplane Loves You" box set. It was recorded at the Fillmore in San Francisco in May 1967. I put it here because it's a really nice song that was only played in concert by the band a handful of times. I didn't have anywhere else in my music collection to put it, so I stuck it here.

01 Somebody to Love (Jefferson Airplane)
02 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
03 She Has Funny Cars (Jefferson Airplane)
04 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
05 Two Heads (Jefferson Airplane)
06 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
07 Young Girl Sunday Blues (Jefferson Airplane)
08 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
09 Fat Angel (Jefferson Airplane)
10 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
11 Come Back Baby [Edit] (Jefferson Airplane)
12 The Other Side of This Life (Jefferson Airplane)
13 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
14 Let's Get Together (Jefferson Airplane)
15 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
16 It's No Secret (Jefferson Airplane)
17 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
18 Two Heads (Jefferson Airplane)
19 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
20 She Has Funny Cars (Jefferson Airplane)
21 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
22 Martha (Jefferson Airplane)
23 Jorma's Blues (Jefferson Airplane)
24 Rock Me Baby (Jefferson Airplane)
25 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
26 Today (Jefferson Airplane)
27 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
28 Somebody to Love (Jefferson Airplane)
29 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
30 Outro [Instrumental] (Jefferson Airplane)
31 Comin' Back to Me (Jefferson Airplane)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15309861/JeffersonA_1967b_OKeefCentrTrontoCanada__8-5-1967_atse.zip.html

When the band played this series of shows in Toronto, they actually had a kind of promotional program printed to help drum up interest. This photo is from that program. So it's not actually from this concert, but from some other unknown one earlier in 1967.

Jefferson Airplane - High Flying Bird - Non-Album Tracks (1962-1966)

A year or two ago, I posted a Jefferson Airplane album with this exact name and cover art. Today, I'm deleting that and replacing it with this album and one other. Basically, I found enough material to make two stray tracks albums of this band's beginnings instead of one. So you should delete that earlier album if you downloaded this, and replace it with this one and the new one I'll be posting.

I know these changes must be confusing. In terms of content, this album is almost entirely different from the previous "High Flying Bird" album. That one dealt with the years 1966 to 1967. This one deals with 1962 to 1966. There's only a little overlap, but one of the songs here is the song "High Flying Bird." That's why I've moved the album title and the associated cover art.

With that out of the way, let's get to the music. The band released their first album, "Jefferson Airplane Takes Off," in 1966. But there was a long musical journey getting there, given all the talented people in the band. 

I've found some early recordings Marty Balin made that go back to 1962, including a song where he sang lead vocals for the folk music group the Town Criers. There are some more early songs he did both with solo singles and with the Town Criers, but most of them frankly aren't very good so I haven't included them.

I also found a couple of bootleg recordings of Jorma Kaukonen playing solo acoustic in night clubs in 1964. Most of what he did was exactly what he'd play solo and as part of Hot Tuna in later years, such as lots of Reverend Gary Davis tunes. I picked out a couple of the songs I liked the best, including "Good Shepherd," a cover song Jefferson Airplane would record in a very different arrangement in 1969.

Paul Kantner was one of the main singers and songwriters for the band, but I didn't find anything he recorded before joining the band.

Grace Slick only joined Jefferson Airplane after the band's first album, replacing another female vocalist, Signe Anderson. Prior to that, she was in the band the Great Society for about a year. They were surprisingly good in my opinion, and I've already posted a bootleg of one of their concerts on this blog. I decided not to include any of their live material here, but to include the best of their limited studio work. They never put out a studio album, but they did release two singles, plus they recorded some demos. I've included the best of all that, mainly the songs where Slick sang lead vocals.

That leaves six songs on this album that were actually recorded by Jefferson Airplane. They all were done in 1966, mostly as outtakes or B-sides from the "Jefferson Airplane Takes Off" album. Note that I think these Jefferson Airplane songs have Signe Anderson singing the female vocals if there are any, since Slick didn't replace her until towards the end of the year. (I believe the last song, "Kansas City Blues," is from Slick's very first concert with the band in mid-October 1966, but it's pretty much a moot point since there's no female vocals on that particular song.)

This album is something of a mixed bag, since it's got a number of different lead vocalists singing different styles of music over a several year period. But Jefferson Airplane was very much like that in general, so I don't think this sounds that different from their early stuff.

The sound quality is generally excellent. Everything here has been officially released except for the two Jorma Kaukonen solo songs, plus a cover of a Bob Dylan song, "Lay Down Your Weary Tune." That Dylan song probably sounds the worst, but I made some edits to fix some rough parts of the song. The band did a few more cover songs in their early years, such as "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better" by the Byrds and the blues song "Baby What You Want Me to Do." But I didn't include them either due to poor bootleg recordings, or poor performances, or both. 

This album is 49 minutes long.

01 I Specialize in Love (Marty Balin)
02 900 Miles (Town Criers with Marty Balin)
03 Pawnshop Blues (Jorma Kaukonen)
04 Good Shepherd (Jorma Kaukonen)
05 Born to Be Burned (Grace Slick & the Great Society)
06 Father Bruce (Grace Slick & the Great Society)
07 Heads Up (Grace Slick & the Great Society)
08 Lay Down Your Weary Tune [Edit] (Jefferson Airplane)
09 Free Advice (Grace Slick & the Great Society)
10 Someone to Love [Somebody to Love] (Grace Slick & the Great Society)
11 Go to Her (Jefferson Airplane)
12 High Flying Bird (Jefferson Airplane)
13 It's Alright (Jefferson Airplane)
14 Runnin' 'Round This World (Jefferson Airplane)
15 Sally Go 'Round the Roses (Grace Slick & the Great Society)
16 Kansas City Blues (Jefferson Airplane)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15906032/JeffersonA_1962-1966_HghFlyingBird_atse.zip.html

I really like the album cover I chose here. In fact, I used to have a poster of it. It's based on a concert poster from the era, but I cropped it and added some words at the bottom.

Jefferson Airplane - The Other Side of This Life - Non-Album Tracks (1967)

I just posted a Jefferson Airplane stray tracks album dealing with the years 1962 to 1966, called "High Flying Bird." This continues from that, dealing with the year 1967. Together, these two albums expand upon and replace a stray tracks album I'd posted a year or two ago that had the same "High Flying Bird" title and cover art. I'm deleting that previous version now.

The band's 1967 album "Surrealistic Pillow" is a classic. Most of the songs here are outtakes from that album. The band was peaking creatively, so it's not too surprising that the outtakes are solid too. In my opinion, had this album been released, it would hold up with their other 1960s albums. Most of the songs are originals, though "The Fat Angel" is a Donovan song, "The Other Side of This Life" is a Fred Neil song, and "In the Midnight Hour" was a hit for Wilson Pickett. 

The last song is an outtake from their next album, "After Bathing at Baxter's" released near the end of 1967. Surprisingly, there aren't really any good stray tracks from 1968, though there are some weird studio experiments a la the Beatles' "Revolution 9."

All the songs here are officially released except for "The Fat Angel," "Leave You Alone," "The Other Side of This Life," and "In the Midnight Hour." But those are from soundboard bootlegs, so the sound quality is generally excellent. "Leave You Alone" seems to be a Marty Balin original. I'm surprised it hasn't been released, since it's a fine song. The sound quality is little bit poorer on that one.

This album is 47 minutes long.

UPDATE: On June 2, 2023, I updated the mp3 download file. I added the song "In the Midnight Hour." And I replaced a version of "The Fat Angel" from 1966 with one from 1967.

01 The Fat Angel (Jefferson Airplane)
02 In the Morning (Jefferson Airplane)
03 J. P. P. McStep B. Blues (Jefferson Airplane)
04 In the Midnight Hour (Jefferson Airplane)
05 Come Back Baby (Jefferson Airplane)
06 Don't Let Me Down (Jefferson Airplane)
07 Leave You Alone (Jefferson Airplane)
08 The Other Side of This Life (Jefferson Airplane)
09 Things Are Better in the East (Jefferson Airplane)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15301591/JeffersonA_1967_TheOthrSideofThisLife_atse.zip.html

The cover art is based on a 1966 concert poster from when the band played the Fillmore in San Francisco. I made three big changes to it. First, I had to crop a lot of it out, to get a rectangular poster shape to fit into the square album shape. Second, I replaced some text at the bottom, which I believe was the name of one of the support acts, with the album title. Third, the band name and the woman in the middle were colored a boring shade of brown. I changed that to a blue that I liked better.

Grace Slick & the Great Society - The Matrix, San Francisco, CA, 6-1966

Do you like Jefferson Airplane? How would you like an entire album that sounds like Jefferson Airplane in their prime but has Grace Slick sing most every song, instead of her just being one of four lead vocalists? That's basically what the Great Society were. Even though I've been a Jefferson Airplane fan for ages, I only recently started appreciating the Great Society. 

There have been a couple of official albums released by them: "Born to Be Bad," which contains early studio demos that aren't very good, and "Collector's Item," which is an excellent concert recording. This is a bootleg, so I feel free to post it here, and the sound quality and performance are very similar to "Collector's Item."

The Great Society only existed for about a year, from 1965 to 1966. For most of that time, they had two lead vocalists: Grace Slick and David Miner.  I have to be brutally honest here. Miner generally sang his own songs, and they were pretty bad. As a lead vocalist, he was merely adequate. I think it's telling that after leaving the band, he went to college and left the music business. As a result, I've taken a longer bootleg and removed all of the David Miner originals, making it a much stronger album. The only ones I've kept where he sings are the covers "Down Home Girl," "Black Crow Blues," and "Get Out of My Life Woman." For that last one, he and Slick harmonize together on the vocals. 

Removing his songs may sound harsh, but believe me, you're not missing anything. Note this is exactly what the official album "Collector's Item" did. That was recorded about three months before this, so Miner probably sang half or more of the songs, but all of the songs with him singing lead were removed.

With Miner gone, the Great Society would have had a bright future being fronted by Slick. But right as they were offered a record contract, she had a chance to join Jefferson Airplane and replace their departing female lead vocalist. She obviously chose to join Jefferson Airplane. Somewhat surprisingly, the other band members encouraged her to do so, knowing that was the better path to success. Then the band folded, since they knew they wouldn't be much without her.

You can read more about the band at their Wikipedia entry, if you're curious:

The Great Society (band) - Wikipedia

What surprises me about the band is that it had multiple talented songwriters. Slick sang some songs she wrote herself, others written by the bassist (Peter van Gelder), and still others written by her brother-in-law Darby Slick. The Jefferson Airplane classic "White Rabbit" was written by Slick and was first performed by the Great Society, though sadly it's not included here. Another Jefferson Airplane classic, "Somebody to Love," was written by Darby Slick and is included here in a slower version called "Someone to Love." The songs are originals other than the three Miner sung or co-sung ones mentioned above, plus "Outlaw Blues" by Bob Dylan.

As an aside, I find it interesting that there's a slight lyrical difference with the early version of "Somebody to Love" compared to the hit version done by Jefferson Airplane. The Airplane version has a verse that goes: "Your eyes, your eyes may look like his. But in your head, baby, I'm afraid you don't know where it is." But the original here goes: "Your eyes, your eyes may look like his. But in bed, baby, I'm afraid you don't know where it is." It's a subtle difference, but it makes more sense. I'm guessing it was changed because the "in bed" part was considered too risque by the very innocent sexual standards of that era. (To show just how much standards have changed, consider that in the same year of 1967, the Van Morrison song "Brown Eyed Girl" was banned by many radio stations merely for containing the lyric "makin' love in the green grass behind the stadium.")

This album is 35 minutes long. As I said above, you can find longer versions of this bootleg with the Miner songs included, but in this case, less is more. I also removed a second version of "Born to Be Burned" that got cut off before the end, and a short instrumental that wasn't very good. Both on this bootleg and the live "Collector's Item," there doesn't seem to have been any banter between songs.

By the way, at the time, the band was simply known as "the Great Society." But due to Slick's later fame, after the band broke up, they have often been called "Grace Slick and the Great Society." I've gone with that latter, less accurate name, to help make sure people don't miss this music.

01 Down Home Girl (Grace Slick & the Great Society)
02 Born to Be Burned (Grace Slick & the Great Society)
03 Black Crow Blues (Grace Slick & the Great Society)
04 Didn't Think So (Grace Slick & the Great Society)
05 Darkly Smiling (Grace Slick & the Great Society)
06 Father Bruce (Grace Slick & the Great Society)
07 Often as I May (Grace Slick & the Great Society)
08 Outlaw Blues (Grace Slick & the Great Society)
09 Get Out of My Life Woman (Grace Slick & the Great Society)
10 Someone to Love [Somebody to Love] (Grace Slick & the Great Society)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16693319/JEFFRSNARPLN1966_GrtSocietyThMtrixSnFrncscoCA__6-1966_atse.zip.html

I wanted to use a photo of the whole band, but I couldn't find a good one in color that wasn't used for an album already. So I went with a photo of just Grace Slick. I don't know when or where this photo is from, but I'm guessing it's from 1967 or thereabouts.

Jefferson Airplane - Frozen Noses - Non-Album Tracks (1970)

Nearly all of that albums I post here are ones I created for myself a long time ago. That's how I'm able to post a lot of them in a short time. But today I made a new one. I was listening to some Jefferson Airplane and it occurred to me that it was odd how the group never released an album in 1970, even though they released at least one album a year for every other year of their existence. So I decided to try to see if I could come up with one.

I'm glad I did. At first, all I had was the one single they released that year ("Mexico" backed with "Have You Seen the Saucers"). But it turns out they had a lot more material, and that's not even including any of the songs on the "Blows Against the Empire" album released by an offshoot of the group that year.

They actually did a lot of work on an album in 1970.  But the band had split into three camps (Grace Slick and Paul Kantner in one, Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Cassady in another, and Marty Balin in the third), and tensions got so bad that the band was barely functional. Balin effectively quit the band by the end of the year, even though it wasn't official until midway through 1971.

As a result, the planned album, "Bark," didn't come out until 1971, and when it did come out it was very different than how it would have been if it had come out in 1970. Most notably, all of Balin's contributions were dropped. He had four good songs, yet he wouldn't release any new music until 1973, and by then only one of those songs would be included.

I made sure to include songs by all three factions of the group at the time. However, there was a fourth songwriting effort I avoided, that of band drummer Joey Covington. He wrote and sang a number of songs that the band played live at the time, such as "Whatever the Old Man Does Is Always Right," "Bludgeon of a Bluecoat" and "I Can Tell," but I found all of them not good enough to include. It seems the rest of the band felt the same way, since they were never released then or on any later archival releases. (Yet the next year he would be a key participant in coming up with and singing the excellent song "Pretty as You Feel," which would be the last hit by the group.)

The biggest surprise for me was the song "Frozen Noses," which I didn't know about until stumbling on it today. It's a nice song written by Grace Slick and recorded by the band, by it has never been officially released in any form. I liked it so much that I decided to name the album after it. It's a fitting title, because most or all of the band members were said to be heavily into cocaine by 1970.

For the last song on this album, I broke my usual rule of not including the exact versions of songs on official albums released around the same time. The song, "New Song (For the Morning)," technically isn't even a Jefferson Airplane song at all, since it was released on the 1970 album "Hot Tuna," the first album by the Kaukonen-Cassady spinoff group of the same name. But I've always felt that song didn't belong on the album it wound up on and should have been on a Jefferson Airplane album instead. The first Hot Tuna album is basically all covers of old blues songs except for that original song by Kaukonen, which is done in a very different songwriting style. It also is one of my favorite songs written by Kaukonen, yet it's overlooked because he's only rarely played it in concert in all the years since. So I indulged myself by sticking it on this album instead, where it would make an ideal last song.

("True Religion" did come out on a 1972 Hot Tuna album, but this is a version done in a Jefferson Airplane concert, with significantly different instrumentation.)

01 Mexico (Jefferson Airplane)
02 You Wear Your Dresses Too Short (Jefferson Airplane)
03 Uncle Sam Blues (Jefferson Airplane)
04 Emergency (Jefferson Airplane)
05 Have You Seen the Saucers (Jefferson Airplane)
06 Up or Down (Jefferson Airplane)
07 True Religion (Jefferson Airplane)
08 Frozen Noses (Jefferson Airplane)
09 Drifting (Jefferson Airplane)
10 New Song [For the Morning] (Jefferson Airplane)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15906150/JeffersonA_1969-1970_FrozenNses_atse.zip.html

I had a hard time coming up with a good cover for this album. Frankly, I'm not sure where this cover image I chose comes from. I think it's fan art, but I could be wrong. In any case, I think it looks great. I just cropped it some the avoid some text and then added new text at the bottom.